Trace metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls in the surface sediments from Sanya River, China: Distribution, sources and ecological risk.

The urban inland river ecosystems are now facing comprehensive pollution and governance pressures. Up to now, few works related to the multiple pollution assessment of trace metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) for the urban inland river sediments have been reported in China. Our study investigated the spatial distribution, ecological risk and potential sources of trace metals, PAHs and PCBs in surface sediment collected from 20 sampling sites of Sanya River, Hainan Province, China. The pollution status and potential ecological risk of trace metals were evaluated using the contamination indexes including geoaccumulation index (Igeo), individual potential ecological risk (Eri), potential ecological risk index (RI) and pollution load index (PLI). Considering the carcinogenicity and toxicity of PAHs and PCBs to human health and the ecological environment, we also analyzed the distributions, sources and adverse biological effects of PAHs and PCBs according to the sediment quality guidelines (SQGs), principal component analysis (PCA) and other source analysis. This study revealed that the surface sediments in Sanya River were extremely slight pollution and showed a very low ecological risk according to Igeo, Eri, PLI and RI results for trace metals. Besides, PAHs and PCBs pollution detected may not pose considerable adverse biological effect to ecological environment in a foreseeable period on the basis of comprehensive research results. The overall surface sediments quality of the Sanya River not seem to pose a serious pollution and ecological risk based on the evaluation results of multiple pollution factors. The study provided detailed information on the multiple pollution status and location of surface sediments, one of the key environmental indicators of international tourism cities, in the Sanya River, which would be useful for the water quality improvement of Sanya River and the environmental remediation of the other coastal ecosystems from different regions.

[Distribution, Source, and Ecological Risk Evaluation of the PAHs and PCBs in the Sediments from Sanya River].

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), two typical persistent organic pollutants, are the research focus due to their mutagenesis, carcinogenesis, teratogenesis, and bioaccumulation. The content distribution and residual characteristics of PAHs and PCBs were investigated in the sediments from the Sanya River. Source apportionment was further explored based on the analysis of the spatial distribution, and the ecological risk evaluation was carried out with the sediment quality criteria and standards. The results indicate that the content of ΣPAHs and ΣPCBs in the sediment range from 265.00 µg·kg-1 to 6735.00 µg·kg-1 and 1.75 µg·kg-1 to 92.75 µg·kg-1, with relatively high contents in the east and west river upstream, respectively, which had a strong correlation with the industrial structure and river movement of the study area. The composition and source apportionment demonstrate that PAHs originated mostly from the combustion of petroleum with low PAHs, and haxa-CB and hepta-CB are the predominant PCBs congeners, primarily resulting from the migration of PCBs in the capacitor. The ecological risk evaluation demonstrates that the biotoxic effect of the PAHs is not obvious, with a low ecological risk. However, several PAHs monomers exceeded the standard significantly in some sampling sites, which should be of concern due to its serious threat of exposure to organisms. The probability of a biotoxic effect of PCBs is 10%-50%, which occasionally produces a negative ecological effect.